


Five Times Claudia Got Tattooed (And the One Time Janine Joined Her)

by Missy



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen, Humor, Slice of Life, Tattoos, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia's tattoos tell their own tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Claudia Got Tattooed (And the One Time Janine Joined Her)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SmallFandomFest, Prompt: Babysitters Club (Ann M Martin) Claudia Tattoos

She gets the first one during spring break, when she’s just a little tipsy and just a little lonely for home. College has not been easy, and it’s hard to be away from her friends, to deal with the absolutes of knowing that she was growing up and nothing she could do would stop that. She remembers standing in front of the big laminated placard in front of the shop, trying to pick between one design and the other, wishing she had her sketchbook with her, where she’d designed plenty of beautiful, creative pieces of ink for herself. But no – she picks out a little heart and a banner and decides to add a Frida Kahlo quote to the mix as well.

“I hope the exit is joyful?” Janine gasps later, when she returns home for a holiday break and she accidentally notices the tiny line of red riing her hip. She re-reads the work with bemusement. “Claude, that’s terrible.”

‘I meant school! Not anything else!” she quickly protests. 

Janine still takes the opportunity to tease her over it, though. Claudia sighs, resigns herself to it and hopes Janine will forget the whole thing by the time Claudia gets her next one.

*** 

The second one is meticulously designed, a deconstruction of who she is as a person, artistic, vivid, brightly drawn and beautifully crafted. Brushes, candy, bright colors, numbers to represent the horrorshow that was math – the tattoo had it all.

Unfortunately, the tattoo artist in question didn’t. The M&Ms end up looking like tiny green blobs running up and down her arm.

***   
This is the one she’d talk Stacey into getting with her, if Stacey wanted a tattoo (she thinks they’re extremely déclassé). Two big boxes of candy, one labeled sugar free, with a banner reading ‘friends til the end’ over it.

When she suggests it to Stacey in college she’s not into it – so Claudia holds on to the idea.

Maybe she’ll be TOTALLY into it when she’s thirty.

**** 

Bridal tattoos should totally be a thing, Claudia tells Alan. He looks very confused, then very scared, then very aroused.

Is it any wonder why she’s marrying him?

Claudia’s suggestion for it is simple – a heart intertwined with a flowing brook, memorializing their time as kids in Stonybrook together. He only goes to two sessions before wussing out due to pain, but he does have an outline of a river running through his arm. It’s cute, weirdly, to see it clear on his skin.

Claudia later fills her over the years with her own watercolors – pretty blue, lovely purple, pale green, and a red fiery blossom.

 

***

 

The next one is the most special, the most carefully drawn. It’s a bed with a purple quilt, and seven hearts on it. 

She knows what those hearts represent, and she understands what each of them means. But unless someone asks her she’ll never volunteer the information – just smile and ask them if they remember what the Babysitters Club was.

She’s managed to track down many of her former charges that way.

*** 

“You should get something tasteful to mark the baby’s birth,” Janine says, as if Claudia’s ever done tasteful once in her life.

“Ooh, good idea,” Claudia says. “I’ll get a big one over my boob reading ‘Babies eat here for free.”

“That’s awful. You’re awful, too, just so you know.”

“Thanks, sis.”

“You’re welcome.”

Claudia commemorates the occasion with a tiny heart over her heart. When her daughter learns about it years later she’s thoroughly embarrassed.

And Claudia is extremely proud. It’s not every mom who can effortlessly embarrass her kids thoroughly with just a grin and a wave.

**** 

“I don’t believe you talked me into this,” Kirsty says.

“I think it’s a cute idea,” Dawn saus. “And I bet Mary Anne cries.”

“I won’t cry! I have a high pain tolerance.”

“Cute, Mary Anne. Do you have a bridge you’d like to sell me on top of that one?”

They’re standing in the same tattoo parlor where Claudia got her first tat so many years ago, eyeing the line-up and the variety of options with wary, curious eyes. Kristy, naturally, picks the design they’ll all share – a phone. 

This is the one that hurts Claudia the least. Kristy the most. Why she chooses to put it on her hand Claudia will never understand.

 

***

 

The last one pops into existence as she’s standing beside her sister in Las Vegas. This is the most “undone” she’s ever seen Janine – the most completely and totally open to new ideas. Claudia almost wants to ask if her sister is some kind of changeling, replaced and transmogrified by time and space into somebody new.

“Why don’t we just do it?” Janine asks suddenly. “Just go in there and get ourselves tattooed?”

“Because you have a very low pain tolerance.” 

“Pft. Preposterous. My pain tolerance is perfectly normal. YOUR pain tolerance, on the other hand, is creepily superhuman.”

“Thank you. Shall we?”

They got their grandmother’s name on the back of their necks, standing out bold and highly delineated from her skin. They were proud of each other – proud to be marked with the Kishi name, proud to think of their Grandmother’s memory – and proud to have one another, to actually be on speaking terms after their turbulent teen years.

Claudia feels more like a sister to her sister now than she ever has before; more in kinship with Janine, more likely to be closer the older they grow and the more time passes along. It’s been worth it – worth all of it, from the terrible fashion missteps to the arguments to the art project disasters gone awry. Absolutely every single thing she’s gone through has redoubled in her, has resulted in bringing her closer to her true self –a road map written in ink across her shoulders, her back, her neck, he arms, down her side to her feet. The world’s happy path sang from her flesh, and Claudia is happy to see it.


End file.
